


Colorado Springs Vacation Guide

by tigerlady (shetiger)



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Athosians, Episode Related, Episode: s03e06 The Real World, Episode: s03e10-e11 The Return, Pre-Relationship, original character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2018-01-07 01:56:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1114175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shetiger/pseuds/tigerlady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the chaos of the Ancients' return and the subsequent Asuran takeover of Atlantis, the Athosians invite John and Elizabeth to take part in a ritual to make their new planet feel more like home. Of course, things never go as smoothly as planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Colorado Springs Vacation Guide

**Author's Note:**

> Written for seramercury in the SGA Santa exchange. Set during a nebulous period of time between The Return part 2 and Echoes.

"It's so beautiful here," Elizabeth breathed. She was standing at the edge of the ravine, staring down where the celadon green river coursed through the granite boulders, her eyes open and alert, the constant little furrow between her eyebrows gone missing like it'd never been. Her gaze slid to the side, finding John's eyes, her lips tilting as she cocked an eyebrow at him. "Don't tell me. This is old hat for you."

"Well." It _was_ , though that didn't mean he couldn't appreciate the magnificence of the towering evergreens stretching out around them. "Let's just say it's a lot easier to stop and smell the roses when you're not being chased by angry villagers. Or the Genii. Or, you know, the Wraith."

"Your words to the Ancestors' ears," Eman murmured, though his mouth soured immediately afterwards, like he'd suddenly remembered that the gods of his everyday prayers were real—and most definitely had feet of clay. The bitter expression passed quickly, his usual pleasant demeanor returning as he stepped closer to Elizabeth. "This world has much to commend it. In many ways, it reminds me of Athos."

John held his tongue at that. He could count on one hand the number of planets out there that _didn't_ remind him of Athos, but, hey. He wasn't the one who'd had his homeworld burned out by the Wraith. No matter how much green grass he'd tromped through across the Pegasus Galaxy, he hadn't yet seen a blade as brilliant as those on the football fields back on Earth. 

"But it's not home yet, is it?" Elizabeth laid her hand on Eman's upper arm.

"Not in our hearts," Eman said, glancing back at Jinto. "But that is why today's ritual is so important to us. And why we are grateful that you have chosen to help us tread the earth beneath our feet, to truly make it New Athos to our people."

"Of course. It's an honor to be asked."

John rolled his eyes. It wasn't any of his business who Elizabeth chose to flirt with; even if the guy looked like a Viking warrior, that didn't mean he was going to throw her over his shoulder and run off with her. But they'd already gone through the whole my people-your people thing about three times already today, and John was starting to wonder if he'd have been better off tagging along with another group.

"An honor, yeah," John said. "But about that treading the earth part. You think maybe we should get going on that?"

"Of course," Eman said, and the guy didn't even have the decency to look irritated at John's casual interruption. "Just a bit further, I think, and then we should begin our journey back to the village."

"But lunch first," Jinto said, and Eman laughed.

"Yes, lunch first," he said, shaking his head before he winked at Elizabeth. "The young always remind us of our true priorities."

"I am not _that_ young," Jinto protested, with only an edge of the petulant whine of teenagers everywhere. "And I heard your stomach rumble not ten minutes ago."

"Then perhaps we should both turn our ears towards more productive endeavors." Eman cuffed the back of Jinto's neck, then turned them both away from the ravine.

"I'll be sure to tell McKay he's young at heart next time he bitches about stopping for something to eat," John said under his breath as Elizabeth passed by him. 

She shot him a _be good, Colonel_ look, but that world-class poker face failed her when he grinned back unrepentantly. Her smirk turned evil a second later. "So that noise I heard coming from your direction earlier was just forest noises."

John nodded emphatically. "Squirrels, possibly. Pretty sure I saw a couple of the little devils making a nest back there."

"Uh-huh," she said, laughing lightly at the 'who, me?' face John pulled. They fell into easy step together, following behind Eman and Jinto much as they had before: Elizabeth taking in the wonders of nature all around them, and John watching her take it all in.

When Teyla had first brought up the idea of Elizabeth and some of the others taking part in the Athosian land bonding ceremony as a way to reestablish the partnership between the Athosians and the Atlantis expedition, John had been hesitant. Sure, the principle of the thing was sound. But the Athosians seemed to have a ritual for every little thing, and while a good half of them involved feasting—not to mention drinking that hard-kicking wine of theirs—the other half always managed to be...well, awkward, in some way or another. Like the time he'd been asked, as a representative of the city of the Ancestors, to give a blessing for the first baby born on the Atlantean homeworld.

Shockingly, they'd never asked him to do that again.

Today had been good, though, Elizabeth all smiles as she bantered with Eman, as she drew Jinto into discussions about his new responsibilities now that he was considered of age among his people. The calm of walking through the forest, the fresh air, the bubble and roar of the small river they walked beside, all seemed to suit her.

Of course, John had known it would.

"Here," he said, holding out his hand as she tried to scramble over a moss-draped, fallen tree trunk the size of her desk back on Atlantis. She took it with a smile and a thanks, holding on until he'd made the trip over himself.

"I'm fine," she said as he brushed moss gunk off of his BDUs.

John slapped his thighs one last time, then held up his hands in surrender. "I never said you weren't."

"So then why have you been giving me the eye all morning?" she asked, and okay, maybe he hadn't been as subtle as he thought he was being. "You don't have to worry about me keeping up. Yes, granted, it's a bit more exercise than I'm used to on a regular basis, but I don't just sit in my chair all day, every day, you know."

"I know." Even if he hadn't witnessed her regular jaunts around the city himself, he'd have still heard about them from his men. John had never asked whether she did it to relieve the monotony of sitting in her office, or if she simply liked to check in on her people as they did their jobs throughout Atlantis. "Couldn't help noticing you have a bit of limp, though."

Elizabeth sighed heavily. "Fine, you caught me. I've got a blister on my right heel. And yes, I double-socked."

John eyed the sturdy boots he'd only seen her wear a handful of times since they'd arrived on Atlantis. "There's a way to lace them up so they don't slip around so much," he said. "I'll show you later."

"Thanks," she said, and from the way her shoulders dropped with her quick exhale, that blister must be worse than she was letting on. "I—"

"Hold," Eman called softly, thrusting his fist up into the air. 

Elizabeth snapped her mouth shut, though she took one more stumbling step before she came to a halt. John had his P90 at the ready, scanning ahead, then behind them, for threats, but whatever had caught Eman's attention wasn't making itself known to John's eyes. Jinto didn't look particularly fazed, though his nose was wrinkled up like they'd just stumbled across a batch of rotten eggs.

"There," Eman said quietly, jutting his chin towards the small clearing ahead of them. He slowly lowered his pack to the ground beside him, then hefted his walking stick up near his shoulder, like he was readying to use it as a spear.

A basketball-sized mound of dirt in the center of the clearing _twitched_.

"What the—?"

The mound let out a shriek, higher and more piercing than the grind of metal on metal, and started racing across the clearing, directly towards them. John took aim, but Eman stepped forward, right into John's line of fire. He stabbed his makeshift spear down into the speeding dirt, right before it reached his feet.

The shriek cut off sharply.

"Okay over there?" John called out.

"Quite." Eman chuckled, then started levering his spear back and forth, loosening the earth around it. With one last, quick move, he popped it free of the ground and held it aloft for them to see.

A grey, slimy, floppy, tentacle-y _thing_ dangled from the end.

"Is that a...squid?" Elizabeth asked.

"It is very similar to the creatures taken from oceans, yes," Jinto said, darting forward with an open sack. Eman deposited his kill neatly inside, never touching the creature's flesh. "The elders are still debating what to call it. It seems unique to this world."

"I'd have to go with 'land squid', myself," John said, pleased when Elizabeth's lips quirked upward.

"Succinct," Eman agreed with a firm nod. He tossed the bag over his shoulder, then grinned at Elizabeth.

"What?" she asked, sounding suspicious. No doubt her fine nose for bullshit had just kicked in, even if she hadn't noticed the way Jinto was glaring at the sack.

"Our new home has provided bounty," Eman said. "Now to partake."

"Excellent," Elizabeth said, hands on her hips. "I _love_ calmari."

* * *

Calamari the land squid wasn't, even fried up with a hefty pat of Athosian butter in the little pot Jinto had produced from his pack. Well, it didn't taste anything like _good_ calamari, but John had choked down some awfully suspicious fried squid during a happy hour or two, making the most of a three-day pass. But soggy breading and the smell of fish decaying in the sun had nothing on the gritty, minerally taste of the land squid. Kind of like he'd dropped some butter in a pile of dirt and decided to lick it up.

John leaned in towards Elizabeth, close enough that he could pitch her voice for her ears only, without being too obvious about it. "Tell me the truth. When Teyla asked you to do this, you totally thought she was inviting us to one of their feasts, didn't you?"

Elizabeth snorted. "Teyla was very open with me. She told me we'd be accompanying a hunting party through the forest, and that I'd need to dress appropriately."

"Uh-huh."

"Fine," she said, lips twitching. "I might have imagined something a little more...ritualistic than an all-day march through the woods."

"I'd say welcome to my world, but I'm pretty sure Teyla already used that line this morning."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes, then angled herself more towards Eman and Jinto, raising her voice to include them in the conversation. "So is the land squid your primary game now?"

She'd matched Eman bite for bite throughout their meal, not giving any indication that the taste was less than Cordon Bleu-certified. John had resorted to pulling out the Tabasco before he'd managed to swallow his first mouthful.

"There are some small fur-bearing animals we have started to trap," Eman said. "And some larger grazing mammals on the hoof, but we haven't observed their numbers well enough yet to know if they can support our needs."

"We just finished a blind," Jinto mumbled around a mouthful of land squid. He swiped his hand over his lips, only managing to smear the red spot of Tabasco on his chin, and John smiled. Jinto might be nearly as tall as his dad now, old enough to play an official part in ritual hunting parties, but John could still see the kid he'd met a couple years ago in those wide, eager eyes.

"On the opposite side of the settlement," Eman said. He leaned back against the tree behind him, stretching out his long legs and crossing them at the ankles. "I had hoped we would find a suitable location for another on our outing today."

"Yeah, about that," John said, mirroring Eman's posture. Never let it be said that John Sheppard couldn't lounge with the best of them. He glanced upwards, but the sun was still hidden by the towering trees, giving the light the same overcast sheen that had persisted since they set out. "I know our pace was pretty leisurely this morning, but it's got to be after midday on this world, right?"

"Do not be concerned, Colonel." Eman pointed towards the river, where it narrowed into rapids and started to rush through a cut in the rock. "I simply want to look over the rise there, see if it turns into a pool, as I suspect, and then we shall start back. I won't allow us to be caught out after dark."

Jinto nodded fervently. "The feast starts at sunset, once all of the hunting parties have returned. It is tradition that the last ones to arrive must provide the rhus wine at the next festival."

Elizabeth rolled the toe of her boot into his. "See? Feasting."

"With wine," John said. "Don't forget the important part."

"How could I?" She grinned, then stretched her legs out in front of her like she was trying to work out all the knots from her knees to her toes. "But I think I'll have to give the dancing a pass."

"Now that's a shame." John opened one of the pockets of his tac vest, digging around until he came up with a Band-Aid. "Here."

"Thanks," she said, accepting it with a slightly sheepish smile. John understood why she was always so careful to hide any sign of weakness, to always appear as tough as adamantium nails, but he hated to think that the coin-sized red patch on her heel was something she felt she had to hide from him. They'd been through so much worse together. Surely she knew that one little blister wouldn't diminish her in his eyes.

"I'm fine," Elizabeth said firmly.

"All right!" John held up his hands. "I'll leave you to it, then."

"Thank you," she said more quietly, and John nodded. She bent over, stripping off her boots and socks like a kid tearing through wrapping paper on Christmas morning, and he stayed long enough to make sure that said blister wasn't more than an angry red patch on her heel.

Then he realized he was staring at her naked feet. Not that he was particularly Victorian about ankles or anything, but it really wasn't an appropriate way to act with your commanding officer. John swung around, settling his forearms over the butt of his P90. Jinto was busy tidying up the camp; he'd already dry-doused the fire, and was now kneeling on the sandy stretch of the river bank, rinsing out the cook pot.

John figured he'd leave him to it.

Eman had walked on ahead, about fifteen feet away at the top of the ridge where the river dropped out of view. John sauntered up slowly, mindful of the soft earth on this side of the river, a silky sand and silt combo that slipped under his boots like the finest grains on a beach. The bushes seemed to like it well enough; he had to thread his way between two of them to finally reach Eman's side.

"Whoa," he said. Because _whoa_.

"This truly is a beautiful world," Eman said, just loud enough to be heard over the rush of water dropping ten feet to the rocky pool beneath their feet. "Your Dr. Weir was right about that."

"She frequently is," John agreed easily. The pool below them was small, stretching maybe six feet at the most before it spilled over again into another cascade. White foam frothed up from below, obscuring the river downstream. "It's not exactly the watering hole you had in mind, though, is it?"

"Unfortunately not. But perhaps the next stretch of river will be better." He laughed at the look on John's face, then slapped his shoulder. "Fear not, good Colonel. I have no intention of being the next to bring rhus wine."

"Good call." John figured they could spare another couple minutes, though, so he turned around and called out, "Hey, Elizabeth! Come check this out!"

"Perhaps you should—," Eman said.

Then the ground dropped away from under their feet.

* * *

"John! John!"

John blinked slowly, but the haze around him didn't clear. He hated these damn Wraith ships, all the organic parts that made him feel like Jonah, swallowed up by the whale for his sins. They always stank like swamp gas, like the mess hall after a morning spent boiling up pots of cabbage, and this one seemed to have forgone the whole lighting concept. He needed to get moving, find his team, but he'd gotten turned around somehow, and he couldn't remember what the plan was.

"So help me, Colonel Sheppard, if you don't open your eyes right now, I swear I will haul back and slap the living daylights out of you."

John frowned. That sounded like…. "'lizbeth?"

"Oh, thank God." Something chilled and soft pressed against his cheek, but the touch was gone before he could figure out what it was. "John? Can you open your eyes for me?"

 _They are open,_ he wanted to say, but no, the hazy maze of the hive ship was slipping away, making him realize that his eyes were indeed closed, heavy like he'd been asleep long enough to have matter crusted on every eyelash. 

Once he got them open, he kind of wished he hadn't. 

His head swam with vertigo, unable to tell up from down. The river rushed by only a couple feet from his shoulder, but that couldn't be right, because he was also staring down at a pool of water about five feet below him. He swallowed hard and shut his eyes again, trying to quell the nausea fighting for control of his stomach.

"You're okay," Elizabeth soothed, and there was that cool touch on his cheek again: her hand, chilled enough that he'd be worried about her health, but it felt so good he couldn't quite bring himself to care. "John, can you look at me? I need to know if you remember what happened."

He frowned, then did what she asked. She was frowning back at him, eyes intent, furrow digging in deep between her eyebrows. "We were on New Athos," he said slowly, the pieces taking far longer to put together than they should have. "Walking. Elizabeth, that _thing_ was not a squid."

"No," she said, giving him a tight smile that couldn't overcome the glimmering wetness in her eyes. "It tasted like crap, didn't it?"

"Yeah." He let his eyes slip shut again. He still had the taste of Tabasco sauce and dirt in his mouth, though the dirt was a lot stronger. They'd choked down the faux-calamari, he'd given Elizabeth a Band-Aid, and then he'd gone to talk to—

"Eman!" He shoved himself upwards—or tried to, anyway. Elizabeth slapped her hands down on his chest, pressing _hard_ , but not before John realized that he wasn't going anywhere at all. Not when his legs and right arm were trapped in what felt like a vise.

"Don't move," Elizabeth growled. 

John nodded jerkily, and she let out a heavy breath before easing her weight off of him. He swallowed hard, then raised his head slowly, making himself finally put the picture together in a way that made sense. 

The waterfall was to his right, so close that the spray hit him every other breath, slicking and chilling any exposed skin. Which wasn't much: He'd fallen feet first and wound up wedged into a crevice between the cliff face and the land that sloped down around the river. He could feel solid rock behind his back, and Elizabeth had tucked herself onto one of the large boulders to his right. Pretty lucky, actually, except apparently a large portion of the dirt he'd been standing on had filled in the rest of the crevice, leaving him buried from his feet to halfway up his chest.

Oh, and his right arm was held fast between a jagged spear of rock and the cliff itself.

"So," John said, panting slightly. He swallowed again, but he couldn't seem to catch his breath. "I guess I'm just gonna hang around here for a bit. You didn't happen to bring a six-pack, did you? Maybe some Doritos?"

Elizabeth let out a sharp bark of a laugh and dropped her head.

"Eman?" he asked softly.

She sighed and raised her head, meeting his eyes firmly. "Dead. He fell into the river, and by the time we could get to him, he was gone. I'm not sure whether he drowned or if it was the fall." She let out a dismissive snort. "I suppose it doesn't really matter which it was."

"I'm sorry."

"Me, too." She smiled tightly. "Did you know he was Jinto's uncle?"

"Halling's brother?" John groaned at her nod. Some people really couldn't catch a break. The Wraith made life shitty for most of the inhabitants of the Pegasus Galaxy, but Halling and Jinto…. "Wait. Where's Jinto?"

"He's on his way back to the settlement right now to get help." She smiled, and John could tell she was aiming for reassuring and confident, but that was like saying he was aiming to run back to the settlement after he caught his breath. "We're going to get you out of here, but it might be a few hours."

"A few hours." They'd walked over four this morning; he couldn't imagine Jinto making it back in less than two. He frowned, squinting a bit as he scanned Elizabeth's face again. "Elizabeth, where's your radio?"

"I wish I knew." 

"Okay, that was _not_ the answer I wanted to hear."

She sighed. "I _think_ I got through to Teyla before I lost it. But everything was so crazy. I was trying to get you to answer, and raise them, and get down the cliff. It disappeared somewhere between helping Jinto pull Eman out of the river and getting to you."

That history was written all over her, though John had missed it at first. Those light pink lines on her face were scratches, probably from the same bushes that had left the twigs in her hair. Patches of mud dotted her uniform like a leopard's spots, and her pants were soaked through all the way up to mid-thigh. The sleeves of her jacket were wet-dark, too.

"You need to get dry," he said urgently. "I know it's not cold, but—"

"Shhh," she said. "It's already drying. Right now, you need to tell me what's going on with you. Are you in pain?"

John snorted, because yeah, he had an ache or two. Or a dozen."My shoulder hurts like a bitch," he said. "And I've got pins and needles like you wouldn't believe right now. Other than that, I'm just peachy."

"Hmm." She laid two fingers, just as chilled as the rest of her, against the pulse point in his neck, then she pushed one eyelid back, then the other, for her inspection. "I think you might have a concussion. You're going to need to stay awake for me, okay?"

"Not a problem." He fumbled his left hand towards his shoulder, where his radio usually sat. It was still there, once he'd brushed away a soft layer of dirt, and he didn't hesitate to use it. "Teyla. Ronon. Come in."

"John," Elizabeth said quietly.

He hit the button again, and one more time, even though it didn't respond any more than it had the first time he'd tried.

"Here," Elizabeth said, holding out her hand, fingers pinched together to deliver whatever was inside. John gave up on getting his dead radio to respond and held out his hand, squinting at the two white pills as they bounced against his palm. "Tylenol. One-hundred percent Carson-approved for concussions."

"Thanks," he said, swallowing the pills dry before she could pass him a canteen. He almost jokingly asked for a morphine chaser, but the lines around Elizabeth's eyes were already tight enough. Besides, he didn't hurt _that_ badly. His body was fairly numb right now, the cold of the earth seeping away most of whatever pain he had to be in—and that was a bad sign. Not something he really needed to be thinking about right now. Better to concentrate on the cold water from the canteen, sliding down his throat, filling his belly, leaving him feeling refreshed and ready to take on...well, whatever it was he could take on while playing the part of a stick in the mud.

He handed the nearly empty canteen back to Elizabeth, and she immediately began rooting around in the gear she'd stashed behind her boulder. John eyed her precarious position, then glanced back down at the pool below. It wasn't _that_ precipitous a drop. Unless you factored in all the rocks and the pounding waterfall and the fact that Eman had died in that river, moments ago.

"You don't need to stick around for my benefit," John said as Elizabeth turned back to him, a silver thermal blanket in her hands. "Get back up to the clearing where they can see you when they come for us."

"Jinto knows where we are." She flicked the blanket out, unfolding it, then leaned forward so she could start tucking it around his head. John let his hand hover over her ankle, his gaze lasered in on her feet and knees where she'd wedged herself between the dirt and the boulder, but she never even wobbled, balance as sure as a mountain goat's. After a moment she sat back, smiling at her handiwork. "There. I don't know how much good it will do, but you look pretty snazzy, if I do say so myself."

John rolled his eyes upwards, taking in the hood she'd built over his head. Already he could feel the difference, a bit of warmth returning to his exposed skin now that he wasn't constantly being hit by the spray. "I feel like I should be on my way to Grandmother's house with a basket of goodies for the wolf to steal."

She snorted. "Red _is_ so passé, after all. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"Yeah. Move back out of the danger zone."

She rolled her eyes. "I think you've forgotten who gives the orders around here."

"No, I haven't. When we're in the field—"

"When we're in the field, you're in charge _unless you've been compromised._ Which you have." Elizabeth's eyebrow dared him to argue that point. "So shut it."

"Yes, ma'am," he murmured. He might have even added a snappy salute, but, oh, yeah, his right arm was still trapped. Elizabeth's mouth pinched tight, but he didn't apologize for his sass. They'd gotten better at not butting heads, the years spent working together softening their stubborn streaks, but worrying about each other's safety always brought out the bullheadedness in both of them.

John sighed and let his head drop back to rest against the cliff behind him. Dirt sprinkled down on top of the thermal hood, bouncing off like sleet on a roof to land all around him.

"Careful," Elizabeth said. "You shouldn't move around too much. Just in case."

"Just in case…what?" John asked, but he had a feeling he already knew. He pushed the hood back so he didn't feel as much like a five-year-old swallowed up in his winter coat, then tipped his head back.

"Just in case the rest of it decides to come down on top of you."

"Oh." Because yeah, there was still a fair amount of dirt clinging to the bedrock, some of it held back by the roots of the bushes above his head, some of it clinging by a breath and a prayer. "That."

Elizabeth smiled tightly. "Yes, that."

John let the makeshift hood settle back over his head. "Next time Teyla invites us to one of her parties, remind me to have something really important come up at the last minute."

"Only if I'm included in the something important."

"It's a deal." Far more carefully this time, John rested his head back, letting his eyes slip shut for just a moment. This wasn't so bad. Yeah, his right shoulder ached like crazy, the muscles starting to cramp from being locked into position for so long, but the pins and needles in his hand had tipped over from painful to almost numb. His P90 was digging into his sternum and belly, which made his breathing kind of fast and shallow, but hey, at least he was still breathing. Unlike Eman. 

Man, they'd really managed to ruin the Athosians' special day.

Teyla had been plenty happy about the prospect of spending the day tromping around the forest with her people, even though she'd only left them a few days ago to return to Atlantis. Maybe it was the home cooking. John could see the appeal of that. Especially that one stew they always made for feasts. Kind of like the beef stew the cook used to make when he was little. With extra potatoes, just for him. He'd never liked the cooked carrots much, though. Too sweet and mushy. And orange. 

"John."

"Hmm?" He blinked his eyes open. He didn't think he'd actually fallen asleep, but he was hazy, not sure when his thoughts had wandered off. "Sorry, what did you say?"

"You need to stay awake for me."

"Might be easier said than done," he said, and that absolutely wasn't worrying him, nope. He forced a cheesy smile onto his face. "Maybe you could tell me a story."

She arched an eyebrow. "Isn't that what you do to get kids to fall asleep at night?"

"Mm, maybe," he said, not really willing to admit that there was a hole in his logic. Or that it hadn't been that long ago he'd tried to do that very thing for the group of Athosian children new to Atlantis, scared and grieving their homes and loved ones. Jinto had been one of those kids. And now he was racing through the forest, trying to get back to the settlement for help before John joined his uncle.

"You should tell me a story," Elizabeth said, like she'd plugged right into his thoughts. "That would work much better to keep you awake."

"Yeah, okay," he said, because anything was better than letting his thoughts wander right now. "What do you feel like, Nightmare on Elm Street? Friday the Thirteenth? I know all the greatest hits of the eighties."

She snorted. "If you must."

He thumped his hand against his heart. "What, not a horror fan?"

"I can't imagine why the idea doesn't appeal to me," she said, dry as dust.

"Yeah, well, I stay away from the ones with bugs in them." And of course, since he was thinking about bugs, his brain had to make a leap he really could have done without. "So, hey. You don't happen to remember if Eman said those land squid were predatory, do you?"

Elizabeth's eyes went wide, her gaze snapping upwards, above his head, to that very loose dirt. That very pockmarked dirt, if John's memory served him right.

"Don't think about it," Elizabeth snapped.

"Good idea," John said, swallowing hard. That was one order he'd really love to follow. "So, strike horror movie recaps off the list. Got any other ideas?"

She shrugged. "I don't know, anything. Tell me about something crazy you did as a kid. Or how about your worst first date?"

John grimaced; all he could think of was the time he'd managed to convince Dave to jump out of their treehouse with him, because Batman could do it and he didn't have any superpowers, after all—and Dave had wound up breaking his leg. And the award for worst first dates had to go to the one with Nancy, and he really didn't want to think about his ex-wife right now.

"Okay," Elizabeth said, obviously interpreting his expression correctly. "You have to have a million stories from the service. Drunken exploits, that kind of thing."

"You just want me to tattle on my team," he said, because thinking about anything before the Stargate program inevitably led to thinking about Afghanistan, and he'd rather think about predatory land squid than go there again. "Although. I could tell you about the time me and Sergeant Siler found Anderson locked in a supply closet. Naked."

Her eyebrows rose. "Do tell."

"There's not that much to it," he said. "It was after one of the first missions the SGC sent us out on." Him and his new 'team', though they'd never achieved enough cohesiveness to really earn that label. Maybe that was all on him, since his heart had still been back in Atlantis. The question was moot now, anyway, so he didn't bother to dwell on it too long. "Just a milk run to one of the known uninhabited planets, but we still had to follow the standard decon and medical checkups when we got back."

Elizabeth nodded. "Because of the Goa'uld."

"Yeah. Anyway, somehow Anderson got turned around after he'd stripped down for his shower, and wound up out in the hall." John shook his head. "Don't ask me how. I never did figure that part out."

"It is a bit of a maze down there," Elizabeth said, but she sounded like she didn't believe the excuse she was reaching for, either. "Is that how he ended up in a closet?"

John nodded. "Headed for the first door he could find. Again, it's a mystery to me how he managed to lock himself inside. Might have starved to death in there if the doc hadn't noticed he'd gone missing. And let me tell you, the SGC does not joke around when somebody disappears from the infirmary."

Elizabeth groaned softly. "I can see where this is going."

"Put the whole base on lockdown," John said with some satisfaction. "Did a level by level sweep. Of course, I had a feeling Anderson hadn't managed to make it all that far, so I grabbed Siler. Didn't take long before we found the locked closet, holding a dustpan over his privates."

"That poor man." Elizabeth laughed softly, then covered her mouth and shook her head. "He must have been so embarrassed."

"Yeah, well, I'd feel a lot sorrier for him if he wasn't supposed to be watching my back out in the field." His so called team still left a sour taste in his mouth. "I thought the Stargate program was supposed to recruit the best and the brightest."

"Everyone's human. And if I remember correctly, your team was fairly inexperienced." She cocked her head to the side. "General Landry put a lot of faith in your ability to lead them."

John shook his head, but he didn't bother arguing with her, didn't bother saying what he'd known the moment he'd read through the records of his newly assigned team. Those kids were inexperienced, yes, but they'd all been assigned to at least one team before Landry shuffled them off to John, who was supposed to babysit them on milk runs until they could be transferred out of the program. Elizabeth wouldn't believe that, though. For all that she moved through the world of international—inter _galactic_ —politics like a shark through calm waters, she sometimes forgot how to take off her rose-colored glasses, always wanting to think the best of people.

He wasn't going to fault her for it. That deep faith in people was the reason he was in Atlantis, after all. Well, not _in_ Atlantis right at this very moment. He wouldn't mind being back there right now, hitting a few balls out into the water, relaxing with a nice hot shower and a beer or two….

"Did your team ever have a successful mission?"

"Of course we have," John mumbled crankily. What the hell kind of question was that? "They're the best in two galaxies. Ronon and Teyla can kick anyone's ass, and McKay's brain might actually be as big as his ego."

"I meant your SG team," Elizabeth said softly. "Anderson and the others."

John opened his eyes. "Right. I knew that." 

"Uh-huh." She held out the canteen. Another slug of water helped clear his head some, but it'd be better if he could move around a little, take in a deep breath for once.

He tried to force himself to pull in a deeper breath, but it wasn't happening. Adrenaline jolted through him, making him pant, pushing him towards panic. Just a physiological reaction to not getting enough oxygen, but it was hard to get his body to listen to his brain.

"Would you do me a favor?" Elizabeth asked, and her voice was a rope, just long enough for John to leap out and grab a hold of. "You might think it's a little strange."

"Anything," John said, and in that moment he meant it, even if she wanted him to pour his soul out, delve deep into his childhood issues and confess to all his failures as a human being. "Well. Almost anything. You're out of luck if you want me to go fetch you a cup of coffee."

"Darn. I was really starting to crave a grande mocha."

"I think the closest Starbucks is the next planet over." John jutted his chin out. "Go on. What's your favor?"

A small smile crossed her face, and she looked down, seeming almost shy for a moment, before she looked up again and turned a fuller smile on him. "Tell me all about those outings you kept coming up with for us around Colorado Springs."

"Oh," John said, voice cracking like a teen's. He scrubbed at his ear, trying to rub away the burn of embarrassment. "Listen, about that. I'm sorry I pushed so hard. I just thought—"

"That I needed a good friend?" She arched a fierce eyebrow at him. "Don't apologize, John. Not ever for that."

That was the kind of heartfelt statement that Elizabeth was prone to when things got tough. Exactly the kind of sentiment that John didn't want to hear right now, not when he was fairly sure his body was dying in parts in its already-dug grave. It didn't help that he regretted how intent he'd been, convinced that if he just kept trying, if he just found the one thing to do that was so tempting Elizabeth couldn't say no to it, then he'd be able to pry her out of her apartment. After the first time she'd turned down a trip to the movies, he'd started including Carson in the invites, worried that he'd made her feel uncomfortable by implying something he hadn't meant to imply. But that hadn't helped, not until Carson had gone to visit her in person and somehow convinced her to go out to dinner with the three of them.

"You're drifting on me again," she said.

John shook his head. "No, just thinking. You can't tell me I wasn't a little…."

"Annoying?" she prompted, grinning wickedly. She shook her head. "Don't think I didn't consider strangling you a time or two. But now I'm kind of regretting that I didn't take the opportunity when it kept knocking on my door."

"Opportunity emailed," John grumbled, because he hadn't been crass enough to keep showing up at her apartment. Although, considering Carson's success, maybe he should have.

"Be that as it may," she said firmly. "Talk to me, John. Tell me what you had planned out."

He shrugged, which wasn't all that brilliant of an idea. He gritted his teeth until the pain ebbed away from his torqued arm, then flipped his free hand palm up in the agony-free version of the gesture. "Well, there were all the standards, of course. Pike's Peak, Garden of the Gods, Red Rock Canyon."

"Mmm, yes. I had noticed a bit of an outdoor theme."

"What can I say?" John stretched his unburied arm wide, indicating the beautiful and not-in-any-way-whatsoever-dangerous forest around them. "I'm an outdoorsy kind of guy."

"It wasn't a criticism," Elizabeth said. "I just thought with all the time you spend off-world, you'd want to do something different when you had the chance."

"I don't like being cooped up," he said, which maybe wasn't the best thought to dwell on, considering his current circumstances. "Being up in a Blackhawk, or a shuttlecraft, or hell, even a biplane, is pure freedom. But if I can't do that, then yeah, I like being out and about. Even if it's just for a nice round of eighteen."

Elizabeth smiled tightly. "You must have hated all that time stuck under the mountain."

John suppressed the urge to shrug. "Wasn't my favorite part of the job, no, but I'm used to it. You always have downtime between missions, no matter where you're stationed, and it's rarely scenic. Nothing like Atlantis is."

"So you've learned to make the most of it." 

"Yeah, some," he evaded. She said it like there was no question that he'd gone out and milked every moment for every drop of experience he could get out of life, when the truth was that John had long ago gotten into a sad habit of polishing his golf clubs and browsing through magazines and comic books when he wasn't on duty. "Seven Falls."

"What?"

"Seven Falls. That's the one I thought you'd really like." John closed his eyes, picturing the photos from the website. He hadn't made it out there on his own, even though he'd told himself he would, no matter what Elizabeth's answer turned out to be. "Supposed to be really gorgeous. It's a run of waterfalls, seven of them, cutting down through the granite. They built this walkway-overlook so you can climb the whole way up beside the falls."

Elizabeth smiled. "That sounds lovely."

John snorted. "Yeah, I thought it'd be nice to be able to get so close to them. Feel the spray on our faces, that kind of thing."

"Life does have a way of delivering sometimes, doesn't it?"

John squinted up at her, at the halo of mist that had formed around her head, making her hair curl in little ringlets. "Would that be dramatic irony? I always got that confused in English 101."

"Mmm," she said, then shook her head. "Only if you're Alanis Morissette."

"Still American, last time I checked." He shook his head. "Anyway, that wasn't the real reason I picked the place."

"Oh?"

A bit of smugness settled around him, pushing down some of the pain, and he let it show in his smirk. "Yeah. Apparently those falls were a favorite of this woman who lived nearby for a while." John closed his eyes, but only for a second, just long enough to reach down into the depths of his brain for her name. "Helen Jackson. She wrote books back in the 1800s. And she was a really important activist for Native American rights."

Elizabeth made a pleased sound. "She sounds wonderful."

"She made me think of you." He looked down, not wanting to see what reaction that provoked, and rushed on. "Anyway, I thought you'd like her. Although I should probably confess there's a whole pioneer museum that's got her actual house."

Elizabeth laughed lightly. "And yet I never received _that_ invitation."

"Let's just say I'd rather spend an afternoon listening to McKay list out all the different ways he might accidentally ingest fatal amounts of lemon."

"You know, I had noticed a certain lack of museums in your emails."

"Hey, I like museums," John said, faking affront. "There are two different aviation museums in Colorado Springs, after all. But I didn't those would get you to bite."

He couldn't read the look on her face. "No, probably not."

She didn't say anything else, and John didn't have the energy to keep meeting her gaze. He let his head drop back and closed his eyes, too exhausted to play the game anymore. He could list off a hundred different ideas he'd come up with and tossed aside during those six weeks they were stuck back on Earth. He'd searched for lectures, plays, art exhibits, ballets. He'd found this froo-froo creativity workshop where you drank wine while they taught you how to paint an owl. Which would have been perfect—for Elizabeth and Teyla, maybe.

"I didn't lie about getting free tickets to the zoo, you know," he blurted, hit with the urgent need for her to know that. "They were having this whole military appreciation day...thingie."

"That's what you said in your email," Elizabeth said, and she sounded amused, like she still didn't believe him. "For some reason I just never thought you'd like the zoo."

"Hey, who doesn't like koalas?" 

Maybe it wouldn't have been something he'd pick to do himself, but he knew Elizabeth had a soft spot for animals. He'd been sure that the zoo would be the one, the thing that got her excited enough to get out and start living life again. He'd imagined them strolling through the grounds, eating hot dogs and cotton candy and all kinds of horrible, overpriced Earth food, while they bantered back and forth about whether a visit to the reptile house was in the cards. They'd spend too long in the monkey house, laughing and making inappropriate jokes about their subordinates, before heading over to the big cats. Along the way he'd have convinced her to hit up the petting zoo, even though she'd protest it was just for kids, and then she'd really let loose, laughing when the goat kids nibbled at her hands, cooing over the soft rabbits.

"You gave up after that one," she said quietly.

John shrugged, his right shoulder dead enough that he didn't even feel the tug from his muscles. "I can take a hint. It might take me a while, but I get there eventually."

She let out a shuddering breath, and John opened his eyes, concerned.

"Elizabeth?"

"It's not that I didn't want to do all those things with you," she said. "But I just couldn't. I don't know how to explain it. I knew I needed to get back out there, get on with my life, but I just couldn't get myself to do anything."

"You were depressed."

Elizabeth nodded. "I'm sure that would have been the diagnosis." She crossed her arms over her chest. "I never told you about what the Asurans made me think while I was in that coma."

John shook his head, even though it wasn't really a question. It was one of those 'what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas' kind of things among those who'd had sticky robot fingers inside their brains. Nobody else needed to hear what kind of fears the Asurans manipulated to try to get you to break.

"They made me think I'd lost my mind," she growled. "They—"

"Elizabeth, you don't have to tell me anything."

She shook her head sharply. "I need you to understand."

John slowly nodded, and she let out a harsh breath.

"I woke up in a mental hospital," she said. "They told me that I had a breakdown because I couldn't deal with the grief after my ex was killed, and that I'd imagined everything to do with the Stargate program as some sort of...mental vacation, I guess."

John shook his head. "That's just cruel."

"They do excel at cruelty, don't they?" Her smile was wry. "You have to wonder why that one trait takes precedence above all the others they had to have inherited from the Ancients. If they were programmed with that temperament to enable them to be killers, or if it was a natural consequence of what they were created to do."

"Or maybe the Ancients were just assholes, and it came through in their kids."

She snorted. "Maybe." 

John arched an eyebrow.

She held up both hands. "Hey, after what happened with Helia, the glow has started to wear off for me, too."

Her smile faded, and she looked down, her fingers busying themselves by picking away at the layer of dirt caked on her uniform pants. John wanted to reach out, drag her hand away from her knee, give her a comforting squeeze, but that wasn't the kind of thing he did.

"Anyway," she said, aiming her words at the ground. "The only friendly faces they let me see were my mother and Jack O'Neill. And they both kept telling me that I needed to work on healing, on getting back to my life, to my career."

"Jesus," John breathed. "So when I kept pestering you to get out and do stuff…."

"There might have been a few...reminders," she said dryly. "I guess that's why I never tried to talk to anyone about how I felt. There was part of me that was terrified they'd say Atlantis was all in my head."

"I'm so sorry," John said. He reached out before he could talk himself out of it, nudging her knee with his knuckles.

"Thank you," she said. "But just let me get through this, okay?"

"Okay," he said softly. She nodded, then looked back down at her hands. With her perched on the boulder above him, the river raging to his right, the cold dirt holding his body tight, it should have been impossible to be anything but aware of where he was. For a moment, though, all he could see was Elizabeth stretched out in the infirmary, seemingly unconscious.

"When the Asurans had me," she said, so low he could barely hear her over the waterfall, "there was a point when I started believing them."

Screeching alarms and a swarm of red dots came back to him. "I'm guessing that's when they started taking over."

Elizabeth nodded. "From what Carson explained, I believe so. When I stopped fighting back, I actually suppressed my own immune system. They would have won, John—except I kept seeing this shadowy figure that wouldn't let me believe everything was as it seemed."

John raised his eyebrows and pointed to himself, and she nodded.

"You kept fighting for me, and that was the only reason I found the strength to fight back. You didn't give up on me."

John swallowed thickly. Her eyes were shining when she finally looked up at him. After a moment, John dropped his gaze, unable to deal with the emotions he saw there.

"And back on Earth, you were there again, asking me to keep going, to not give up."

"Asking you to forget about Atlantis," John said with sour realization.

Elizabeth shrugged. "It was different this time, because I knew I wasn't alone. You were just better at hiding how much it hurt."

John stared down at where his boots should be. Yeah, he was good at hiding stuff. It was who he was, who he was raised to be, who his career demanded him to be. He wasn't sure how he felt about the fact that Elizabeth knew him well enough to see past all his bullshit. Part of him wanted to shore up his masks, pull back until she couldn't see through them anymore—but at the same time, part of him liked knowing that he had friends out there who knew who he really was.

"You kept me going," Elizabeth said quietly. "I know it didn't seem like it, but knowing you were out there, fighting for me...well. I knew that someday, I'd have a reason to get off my couch and get back to doing something truly important."

John shook his head, smiling wryly. "Except you said it yourself. I stopped trying."

"Did you?" The question shook faintly, like she hoped she knew the truth but couldn't quite allow herself to believe in it. "Did you really give up on me?"

Just like that, John knew the answer with a certainty he hadn't felt since General Landry had told them the Asurans had attacked Atlantis. "No," he said fiercely. "Never. I had to stop and regroup, because obviously my tactics weren't working. But I would have come up with some other way to help you. You have to know that."

"I do," she said. "And you know it goes both ways, right? After what Kolya did—"

"I never doubted that you were doing everything you could to get me back," John said. He never actually believed she'd succeed, but that wasn't on Elizabeth or his team. "Elizabeth, I—"

"John. Be quiet."

"No, really, I want to—"

She thrust her fist up into the air, a clear imitation of the signal Eman had used only a few hours ago.

John shut his damn mouth. 

Her eyes flicked down to meet his gaze, and then she looked to his left, clearly indicating something near his shoulder. Slowly, ever so slowly, he turned his head in that direction.

Tentacles flicked out of the dirt.

He caught his breath, holding it until the last blue-grey tentacle disappeared back into the earth. He waited another minute, but nothing else happened.

"Okay," he said, whisper-quiet. "Did I mention that I really don't like bugs?"

A high-pitched shriek ripped through the air, making his ears ring worse than standing too close to a C4 detonation. John flailed uselessly beneath the dirt, needing to get a gun into his hand. He couldn't see the thing anywhere: not above him, not to either side, but it was still screaming like it planned to launch an all-out attack.

Elizabeth slammed Eman's spear-stick down into the ground.

"Holy crap," he said as she ratcheted the spear back and forth, just like Eman had, and then wrenched the whole thing free. The squid's tentacles were still wriggling slightly, dislodging sprinkles of dirt down around them. He coughed a few times until the spray from the waterfall cleared the dust out of the air, though his lungs were still tight afterwards, his heart pounding out a beat like a heavy-metal drummer.

Elizabeth gave the land squid a hard shake. "You know, I think I'd actually enjoy eating this one."

John laughed so hard he started coughing again. Elizabeth squatted, concern creasing her brow, but John waved her off. "Go on," he said. "You killed it, you get to clean it. Them's the rules."

"On second thought, I think I'll just set it aside as a gift for the Athosians," she said, rising again to deposit her bounty behind her tiny camp.

That's when the rest of the cliff came tumbling down.

* * *

John woke up flat on his back, staring up at a white ceiling that was familiar enough that it felt like home. A slow glance around confirmed that he was in Atlantis's infirmary, but the reason _why_ was eluding him at the moment.

"Huh," he said, because anytime he actually _woke up_ was a good thing.

"Oh, come on," Elizabeth said from somewhere near his left shoulder. John blinked, not quite sure how he'd missed her presence. "I said you'd be fine, remember?"

That brought it all back: the day trip to Athos, Eman and Jinto, the cliff falling away beneath him. Oh, and the land squid. Twice.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but you have a crappy definition of 'fine.'" But it was pretty hard to complain when he could wiggle all his fingers and toes, when Elizabeth was stepping closer to his side with a smile on her face to match the ones he'd seen back on New Athos before everything had gone to shit.

"You _are_ fine," she said firmly, still smiling. "And I'll have you know that I'm always very precise in my choice of words."

"Yeah, yeah. Big time negotiator and all that." He smiled back at her. "Can't exactly say I'm sorry that you were right."

"Me, either." She squeezed his shoulder, then took a step back from the bed. "I should go let Carson know you're awake. He can fill you in on everything."

"No, wait," John said, a little too urgently, going by the way she was back at his side in an instant. "Just give me the rundown. Please?"

Elizabeth sighed like he was sent specifically to make her life hard, but it was clearly put on; John had heard the real version of that sigh too many times for his liking. "What he told me is that you have a whole lot of bruises and a fair number of strained muscles. They're keeping an eye on your right arm to make sure there's no problems with the circulation, and they've got you on a course of antibiotics because of the risk of pneumonia."

"And the good drugs, apparently," because everything on that list should be making him feel ten kinds of cranky.

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "And the good drugs. So you should be quite happy to stay here and relax."

Carson must have given him the _really_ good drugs this time around, because that actually sounded pretty damn good to him. "Got nothing else on my plate at the moment," he said sleepily, eyes starting to drift shut.

"Good. I'm going to go get Carson before you're out again," she said, but John flailed out, catching hold of her wrist before she could get very far.

"Sorry," he said, but she simply tucked his hand back on the bed, cradling it loosely between both of hers.

"What's up?" she asked softly.

"I just want to, you know. Say thank you."

Elizabeth squeezed his hand. "Of course. I just wish I could have done more."

"Something more than keep me alive? Or were you just hoping for a bigger squid haul, was that it?" John shook his head. "I was really starting to think I was a goner, but you didn't give up on me."

Her smile softened, and she tightened her grip. "That's what we do, right?"

John nodded, his throat too tight to even attempt any of the inadequate words in his head.

Elizabeth squeezed his hand again, then let go and took a step back. "Anyway, I should be the one thanking you. I have a whole list of things to do next time I'm stuck in Colorado Springs for any length of time."

John snorted. "Yeah? Anything at the top of the list?"

She bobbled her hand in the air. "It's a toss up between the zoo and those falls you were telling me about."

"Hey, why choose? Make a day out of it."

"Don't get too wild on me, now." She winked, then walked to the door, but then she paused and turned back towards him. "Oh, and John? Next time you ask me out on one of these 'outings', do us both a favor and don't invite anyone else along."

"Yes, ma'am," he called out as she slipped away, her smile lingering in his mind's eye like the Cheshire Cat's. He laughed lightly, then snuggled back down into the embrace of his pillow, letting his thoughts drift to waterfalls, koala bears, and how to convince Elizabeth that she really would like to squeeze in a trip to an aviation museum in between the two.

END


End file.
